My Date with a Bears Fan

A couple weeks ago, I opened the cyber door to my dating life. Things had been on the slower end and my normally golden charm at the bars was being met with rudeness and complete ignorance (as in I was being ignored completely). I will admit that maybe I was reaching by frequenting St. Norbert’s and UWGB bars, but it feels like yesterday that I was right in the mix with the twenty-somethings. (Just when did I become so uncool?) Little did I realize that there were thousands of singles in the greater Green Bay area alone who shared my frustrations with today’s scene. Enter the world of internet dating.

Within a week of posting my profile, I had already gotten almost 100 views (chicks still dig the hair!), several questions and even an invitation to play some sort of real-life Dungeons & Dragons in Oshkosh (do I look like I play D&D…wtf!). Despite some lame inquiries and casual interest, I still hadn’t gotten that mutual agreement to meet. That is, until Connie contacted me.

Connie is a 36-year old Taurus with a passion for cooking and a penchant for movies starring Jason Statham. And oh yeah – she’s a diehard fan of the Chicago Bears. Normally I would’ve discarded the email like an empty beer can but Connie was actually pretty smokin’ and the readers unanimously voted that I should give it a shot anyway (amazing response people, thanks). So I bit my lip, traded my Carhartt’s for Dockers and met her and a couple of her friends for dinner to be followed by Death Race on Blu-ray.

During the days leading up to the date, I constantly wavered between how I would react to the first mention of Chicago or some snide comment toward Brett Favre. My Packer pride runs deeper than most oceans so there would definitely be the possibility of a reaction somewhere between agitated and outraged. I decided to challenge myself by not bringing up football lest football be brought up. If it was mentioned, I would sternly yet calmly announce my unwavering allegiance to the greatest organization man has ever known, the Green Bay Packers. This would clearly establish my zealous nature and hopefully deter any negative Packer/positive Bear comments and thus the conversation/date from getting ugly.

Thankfully, it never got to that point. In between the salad, the meatloaf, the high school stories, the impressions of Balki from Perfect Strangers (don’t ask) and Mad Max-like car races, neither the Packers nor the Bears ever came up. Connie was really outgoing and friendly, and she seemed genuinely interested in my theory of comparing high school to the real world and how it’s between the Rock and Vin Diesel as to who’s today’s Arnold Schwarzenegger.

In the end, we hugged and agreed to go out again. “A sportsbar” was decided. This could get interesting…